Cuyahoga Falls resident Jenn Thomas-Pallotta, who a few years ago was the winner of Rachael Ray's "So You Think You Can Cook" challenge, will be back on Ray's show on Friday for the show's "Hey Can You Cook?! All-Stars."

Ray invited previous winners of her challenge to a cook-off shot on location in Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

The 2012 Zagat Survey on America's Top Restaurants has been released. It covers 1,578 of the nation’s top restaurants across 45 major markets and incorporates the votes of over 156,000 food lovers who dined out an estimated 25 million times in the past year.

There’s $10,000 grand prize up for grabs in the Sweet Secret recipe contest being sponsored by Eagle Brand.

Now through Dec. 7, bakers can submit a secret holiday recipes (which uses Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk) along with an essay of 100 words or less describing why Eagle Brand is the "sweet secret" ingredient in the recipe.

Several local grocery and natural food stores are taking part in Bulk Foods Week, Oct. 16 to 22.

The week is a project of the Bulk is Green Council or BIG, an organization dedicated to increasing consumer, retailer and grocer awareness of the environmental and economic benefits of buying natural and organic in bulk.

Kudos to Akron native Jan Rhodenbaugh Gibson, whose cooking school in Normandy, France, was named one of the best "French cookery schools," by France magazine, a popular British magazine devoted to all things French.

Gibson, a 1970 Firestone High School graduate, and her husband Peter Gibson, operate La Conterie, in a 1770s chateau near the village of St. Denis LeGast.

Food writer and DWTS fan Lisa Abraham stands in for vacationing Lynne Sherwin to talk the two-step and more with pop culture writer Rich Heldenfels on this week's discussion. Included: Chaz Bono's problems and the magic of J.R. Martinez.

If there was ever a doubt that the holidays are fast approaching, the evidence is piling up on my desk. Now is the season when all wise cook book authors get theirs into print, just in time for holiday gift-giving.

And seriously, what cook doesn't want another book? For most of us, cook book collecting is a favorite hobby, if not an obsession. I've tried to keep my collection down to a reasonable number, at home, but my desk at work is a very different story. They are piled everywhere. I know it's crazy, but I love being surrounded by all of these cookbooks. It's like being surrounded by love all day long. Each page holds the promise of culinary inspiration.

As we continue to talk about whether moible food trucks will have a place in Akron, chef John Schultz, who operates the Zydeco Bistro food truck out of Wadsworth sent me this letter with his thoughts on the city's position against food trucks.